Ara Baliozian

is one of the greatest Armenian contemporary writers, but unfortunately most Armenians do not know about him or his works. He has published close to 20 books over the last 20 years and is acclaimed highly by the foreign media, like Gosdan Zarian and Shahan Shahnour before him, which goes to prove that our anti-establishment writers are not rejected because of the literary quality of their works, but only because of their ideas and their criticism of the Armenian establishment.

Armenian papers used to publish his commentaries/book reviews, but lately he has been ignored by most of them (Armenian Life Weekly and New Life [Nor Gyank] which had been publishing his writings for years, among other papers, have been turning down his works lately). He is sixty years old, and lives in seclusion and poverty in Ontario, Canada.

“Armenian by ancestry, Canadian writer Ara Baliozian was born in Athens, Greece, and educated in Venice, Italy. Widely published in English and Armenian, he has been awarded many prizes and grants for his literary work. He is a regular to many publications in the United States, Canada, Europe, and the Middle East.

His books include THE GREEK POETESS AND OTHER WRITINGS, ARMENIA OBSERVED: AN ANTHOLOGY, FRAGMENTED DREAMS: ARMENIANS IN DIASPORA, and the best-selling study THE ARMENIANS: THEIR HISTORY
AND CULTURE.

His translations of such Armenian classics as Krikor Zohrab, Zabel Yessayan, and Gosdan Zarian have been described as “valuable”, “eloquent”, “brilliant” contributions to world literature. He has himself been translated into French, German, Greek, Spanish, and Armenian.”